


faded

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Bloodline - Claudia Gray
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anger, Betrayal, Guilt, M/M, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Senator Ben Solo, happyish ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-08-19 19:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16540418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: “I had no right,” he said, voice cracking on the words. Getting them out was like chipping granite away from the wall of a cave. Pointless and difficult. They did nothing to ease the pain in Ben’s eyes, nor the guilt. “I did that to you and yours and I—it wasn’t my place. Ben, I don’t know what to say.” He knew he was babbling and repeating himself, the worst faux pas a great orator could make, but he had nothing else to offer Ben. Stretching across the desk, he tried to reach for Ben. A foolish notion. Even if Ben was close enough for Ransolm to grasp hold of him, he would have flinched away. “It wasn’t—I wasn’t thinking. I was afraid.”“You were hurt,” Ben said. “I know the feeling.”





	faded

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perlaret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perlaret/gifts).



Ransolm was ashamed to admit he didn’t think about Ben until afterward. Well afterward if he was being entirely honest, the rage he felt at Leia’s betrayal filling every empty inch of space inside of him until there was nothing left in him that could think of the other people in his life.

It was him. And Leia. And Vader. And not a damned other consideration came into his mind from the moment he discovered the truth to the moment he exposed her secret to the world to the moment he developed a new-found intimacy with the refresher in his office.

Perhaps he should have. No, he definitely should have. Though he hadn’t appreciated that at the time.

And now he was paying for it. The acid burn of bile filled the back of his throat and no matter how many gulps of cold water he took, it wouldn’t go away. As he stared at his reflection in the mirror, he hated himself a little bit. As the rage drained away, he was left with nothing but the ash of his regret. It sat bitter on his tongue and threatened to choke the life out of him. Oh, yes. He was paying for it.

He couldn’t face her. And she, it seemed, didn’t want to face him.

Approaching his desk, he leaned heavily against it until finally he thought his stomach was settled enough that he could sit. Unsteady, he reached for his chair and pulled it toward him and fell heavily back into it. Leaning his head back, he sighed and scrubbed his hands across his eyes. They itched, prickling with exhaustion. After what he’s done, after what he learned about Leia, he wasn’t sure he would ever sleep again.

His collection loomed behind him, a reminder of his hubris. That he could admire them and then turn around vilify Leia, it was abominable. But he couldn’t help what he felt. And he still believed, throughout it all, that the Centrist ideal was right. That his fellow Centrists were, perhaps, less scrupulous than him… it was a tragedy.

A tragedy he hoped he’d be able to rectify. There would be few enough in the Senate who would stand by his side now, though.

Ransolm Casterfo had grown some teeth, but in the process he’d proved himself a snake.

His door chimed and he thought to ignore it for a time. There was no one he wanted to speak with at the moment. Besides, it was probably an aide wanting him to confront things he didn’t have the strength to confront right now. He could put it off for a time. They would come back.

The door chimed again. And then a third time.

And then the person leaned on it until it blared in one long, screeching tone. “I’m coming,” he snapped, pulling himself to his feet. The noise made a headache brew behind his eyes, the pressure building, and he wanted nothing more than to punch the person responsible for it in the face. “For fuck’s sake.”

Slapping the locking mechanism, he let the door slide open. Behind it was not the aide he expected nor even Carise nor another of his Centrist compatriots who would now see him as a tool to further their cause.

It was Ben. Oh, stars. He hadn’t thought about Ben at all.

His stomach, so recently settled, heaved and he thought for a moment he would be sick again. Right here. Where Ben could see him.

“You’re looking pale,” Ben said, dry, controlled. He was furious. That much was clear. Ransolm wasn’t so lacking in empathy to think Ben would be anything other than that or worse. It made shame churn inside of him and a fresh round of bile climbed his throat. Betrayed couldn’t begin to describe what Ben was probably feeling right now. The expression on his face, unreadable and unfathomable though it was, certainly belied something to Ransolm.

Ben was as much a Populist as his mother, though he sometimes saw the point a Centrist made and didn’t flinch away from it the way the rest of them did. No, Ben would one day, assuming anything could ever get done within the government, go down as one of the heroes of the Senate. Like his mother and like his grandmother before him.

There was nothing Ransolm could say to Ben’s observation. That was, quite probably, by design. Meant to be so asinine that Ransolm squirmed on the end of it, like the words were a hook and he was a particularly stupid fish who’d gotten himself caught. Ransolm deserved worse, but Ben didn’t seem interested in giving it to him as he stood there, waiting for some kind of response from Ransolm.

“Do you mind if I sit?” Ben asked when it became entirely clear that Ransolm had nothing to say, deceptively light in his tone and careless in his affect. This time, he didn’t wait. He took the seat that was his by right, that he’d earned through years of work in the Senate and more. Late hours spent debating everything from policy to the best place to eat for date night had earned him free reign of Ransolm’s office.

All for nothing, it seemed, if Ben was back to asking permission even if he didn’t wait for the answer.

Ransolm would have granted that permission anyway. Whatever Ben wanted right now, he would have given it to him. A less scrupulous man than Ben would have taken greater advantage of that.

“How is it—” He settled into the chair Ransolm had gotten specifically because Ben had complained about the old one. “—you have nothing to say? You didn’t lack for words when you were addressing the Senate.” His eyes skimmed the wall behind Ransolm’s head and if he felt shame before, it redoubled itself now. “Now you can’t even say hello to me. I think I’m hurt.”

Ben was good. He was so, so good, but he wasn’t good enough to keep his voice from cracking at the end there, splintering off so that Ransolm might cut himself on the sharp edges of it. He’d done this; he’d done this to Ben and there was no undoing it. He would now always know what Ben’s voice sounded like at this very moment and he hated himself for it.

It was only matched by knowing what Leia looked like in the same situation. Who else had ever brought Leia so low in such a public manner?

Ben leaned forward, his fingers curled around the plush ends of the arm rest. His knuckles whitened with the pressure. Somehow, that was the only thing Ransolm could focus on. His hands looked sickly under the light as a result. “I won’t be ignored, Ransolm.” His voice was so low and deadly serious that Ransolm had to strain to hear. “Not tonight. You don’t get to do this tonight. You don’t have the right.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Ransolm said, voice rusty and hushed. It was easier to focus on the surface of his desk, the spread of papers across it. It took every bit of willpower he had to stop himself from tidying it. “You’ll have to pardon me for that.”

“I don’t have to do anything, you’re right, but there are a significant number of things I would absolutely love to. Pardoning you is not one of them.” His words weren’t nearly as sharp as they deserved to be, but Ransolm tried to take that as a good sign. If something like this could even have a good sign. At this point, he’d be lucky if they got out of this situation as people who could still work together. Asking for anything more was pure greed.

“I’m—” The problem with being sorry, Ransolm found, was that it couldn’t actually undo his actions. And he had no good explanation, nothing that should have flown with Ben or Leia. If they’d truly been his friends—or, in Ben’s case, something else entirely and equally as intimate—he would have given them the benefit of the doubt. Told them or asked them or, or…

There were so many options that spread themselves out before him now that that initial rush of fear and fury had abandoned him. In its wake, he felt cold, empty, lost. Leia hand’t proved herself an enemy to him, yet that was what he’d treated her as.

And her son before him now, eyes steady somehow in spite of the pain that filled them. It didn’t take a genius to recognize it for what it was.

Ignorance.

He hadn’t known either; Ransolm was as certain of that as he was of anything he’d ever thought in his life. No. She’d kept it from him, too. This stain, this blight upon his family.

It made Ransolm want to defend him from himself, because he could see the self-recriminations there. He was the grandson of Darth Vader, a scourge on the galaxy. What, then, did that make Ben, who harbored the same ambitions Ransolm did. Oh, he saw it all in Ben’s face and Ransolm was the reason it was there at all.

“I had no right,” he said, voice cracking on the words. Getting them out was like chipping granite away from the wall of a cave. Pointless and difficult. They did nothing to ease the pain in Ben’s eyes, nor the guilt. “I did that to you and yours and I—it wasn’t my place. Ben, I don’t know what to say.” He knew he was babbling and repeating himself, the worst faux pas a great orator could make, but he had nothing else to offer Ben. Stretching across the desk, he tried to reach for Ben. A foolish notion. Even if Ben was close enough for Ransolm to grasp hold of him, he would have flinched away. “It wasn’t—I wasn’t thinking. I was afraid.”

“You were hurt,” Ben said. “I know the feeling.”

“Ben, please.” It wasn’t that he didn’t deserve it. He knew he did. This and worse. But hearing Ben say these things…

Ransolm wasn’t perfect. And he wasn’t brave.

Ben planted his elbows on his knees and braced his chin on his hands. “Did you stop to think even once about what this would do to the galaxy at large? I already know you didn’t think about me. You certainly didn’t think about my mother. But what about the people you swore to protect? You don’t hate the Populists enough to have genuinely wanted to destroy them. So. Did you stop and ask yourself if this was in their best interest?”

Ransolm swallowed. “The truth is always in the people’s best interest.” He searched the palms of his own hands for a better answer. “But I think you know that wasn’t my motivation. No matter what I might have said to the Senate.”

“Yeah.” Ben sighed and brushed his hand through the loose waves of his hair. “Yeah, I know.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“We?” Eyes wide, Ben shook his head. “We’re not going to do anything. I’m going to tender my resignation and hope like hell my association with the Populists doesn’t destroy them in the next round of elections. I don’t know what my mother’s decided to do. I haven’t spoken with her yet.”

“You—you’re resigning?” Ransolm’s hands tightened into fists. It took every ounce of self-control to stop himself from slamming those fists through the glass cases behind him. “You.” If Ransolm was the Centrists’ rising star, Ben was the Populists’. “It’s impossible. You can’t just—”

“I can do what I want.” His gaze grew cold and exhaustion lapped at the corner of his mouth as he frowned. “And this is what I want. Maybe I’ll join up with dad and see what he’s got for me. I don’t know yet. And I don’t really care.”

“There’s no—”

“I just wanted to say goodbye. I feel like I owe you that. It was—fun. While it lasted. You were the best of them.” As he climbed to his feet, his eyes raked up and down Ransolm’s body. It used to be, that kind of gaze sent pulses of heat working through him. Now all it brought was shame. “But I guess that doesn’t mean much where Centrists are concerned.”

Ransolm wanted to argue.

But he had nothing he could argue with. Everything was gone.

“Goodbye, Ransolm. Don’t destroy too much of the galaxy for the people around you.” He got as far as the door before he continued. “And maybe don’t trust Lady Carise. She probably had a reason to share that information with you.”

If this was the last time he was going to see Ben, he didn’t want this to be the image he was left with. And yet Ransolm couldn’t stop himself from drinking in what little he could still get from Ben. It was cowardly maybe, but he wanted so desperately to ask Ben to stay just a little longer, to let Ransolm argue his side more, to make Ben see why he did it, make him understand what had driven him.

But Ben knew about Riosa and about Ransolm’s relationship with Vader and the Empire and it didn’t matter. Ransolm was still wrong and Ben had every right to be angry.

So he said nothing and didn’t let himself think about the fact that the rigid line of Ben’s shoulders as he pushed his way out the door would be permanently etched into his memories, a specter he would never shake.

*

There was a clatter outside of Ransolm’s cell. Not a particularly unusual occurrence. Not so unusual that Ransolm paid particular attention to it. That was the thing about prison. There was always someone coming and going. Sometimes, they even came and went for him, guards and lawyers and journalists alike. As he awaited his end, he entertained fewer and fewer of them. What was the point? His story was old news, the ending perfectly telegraphed.

His regrets piled up around him, so many of them that he thought they might press the life out of him like stones piled on top of him until the weight smothered him to death.

Perhaps that was why he didn’t lift his head even when the bars of his cell rattled and clanked. All he would find was his guard or another inmate who was being lead past.

“You’re bad at getting rescued,” a voice said, the last voice he ever expected to hear again. “Though you’ve done a perfectly fine job of getting yourself into trouble, that’s for sure. The death penalty, really?”

Ransolm swallowed around the lump in his throat. His heart pounded so hard against his chest that he was afraid it would burst through his rib cage. The man outside looked exactly the same as he remembered.

Mostly.

The clothes were a little less fine than the ones he used to wear to committee hearings maybe, but the rest of him looked exactly the same.

In Ransolm’s heart, he was still beloved. Throwing himself at the bars in a way he hadn’t done since he first got here and believed every noise was the sound of a savior coming to his rescue, he sucked in deep breaths and willed himself to calm down. This was a dream. Surely it was a dream, but Ben’s hands were warm against his and Ransolm’s mind wasn’t likely to conjure the grimace that crossed Ben’s mouth at the touch. “Ben,” he said, uncaring. It had been so long since anyone touched him and Ransolm had found himself weak now that the opportunity presented itself. “Ben, what are you doing here?”

“Saving you,” he answered, pulling free of Ransolm’s touch. Though Ransolm wanted to argue, he couldn’t; why would he argue when Ben was going through the trouble of prying panels off the wall to root around in the wire-ridden guts of the locking mechanism on his door. “I thought that was obvious.”

“Those aren’t the words I would choose here,” he answered. “Not after what I did.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “I’m angry with you. But I never wanted you to get played and end up paying for it with your life. I’m not quite that vindictive.” He flashed a steady, terrifying grin, sharp-edged with the cynicism he used to keep in check. Ransolm didn’t know how long it had been since they’d seen one another, but it’d been a while. Long enough that he’d lost that modicum of self-control he’d always kept firmly locked into place. That was about all he knew. “At least, I don’t think I am.”

Sadness washed over him at the realization that it was probably Ransolm’s actions that had lead him to this.

Something like remorse crossed his features. “I’m serious. This isn’t what I wanted for you.” He hissed and cursed under his breath, but after a moment, the bars creaked and suddenly instead of being locked up, every possibility was open to him. “We should probably get a move on.”

“Where are we going?” Ransolm didn’t think there was anywhere in the Republic that was safe for him. The minute Carise found out he’d escaped, she’d do her utmost to get him back. Even though that sounded like an awful hassle, confining and constricting, he couldn’t find it in his heart to care as long as he could go somewhere.

“The Resistance,” was what Ben said, surprising Ransolm yet again, “if you can accept that the New Republic needs some help to find itself again.”

Ransolm bit his lip. He loved the Republic, but he and Leia had always disagreed on the source of its rots. Still, he’d seen enough of his fellow Centrists to know where the fault lay. Perhaps there were Populists secretly supporting the Amaxines, but Ransolm didn’t know any of them.

“Please,” Ben said, a vulnerable note in his voice. “Don’t be stupid this time.”

And Ransolm still knew Ben enough to hear what he didn’t say. Ben had always been so bad about articulating what he needed. Right now, he needed Ransolm to agree with him. “Okay,” Ransolm said, though he had no idea what he would do with this ‘Resistance’ or how he could help or why Leia would even want him there. “Okay, I won’t.”

The smile Ben offered him was something like the way he used to smile at Ransolm, easy and free and so beautiful that Ransolm felt an embarrassing degree of fondness every single time he gave it. “I’m holding you to that,” he said, but it sounded to Ransolm like forgiveness. “Now let’s get out of here. We’ve got better things to do than get caught by the guards.”

“Okay,” Ransolm said, still a little disbelieving. He wondered if this was an elaborate dream and hoped if it was that he never woke up. “Okay.”

Ben rolled his eyes and pulled him into the hallway, hand fisted in his tattered shirt as he yanked him close enough to press a quick, fierce kiss against Ransolm’s mouth. It made Ransolm’s head spin. If he expected anything from Ben, it wasn’t that, and more than he deserved.

He didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything at all.

Ben didn’t seem to mind. His attention was already on their exit strategy.

That was fine with him under the circumstances; Ransolm got the feeling they’d have plenty of time to work themselves out; he didn’t intend to waste the opportunity.


End file.
